Elsewhere's Twin: a novel of sex, doppelgängers, and the Collective Id (Divided Man Book 3)

by Rune Skelley

  Even that didn’t spoil his mood.

  By the time Willow and Brad finished with their sappiness, Fin’s new bass was warm enough to take for a spin. It had a rich voice, even unamplified. Fin liked the feel of it, smooth and precise. Smiling, he nodded to keep time. He played for about two minutes, and received heartfelt applause from everyone except Zen.

  Rook put her new boots on, and pronounced them perfect. Fin pulled her into his lap and kissed her. Swept up in the moment, he let his hand slide down to her ass.

  “Fin Chester Tanner!” Mom scolded.

  Rook pulled away, laughing. “Chester?”

  Fin shrugged.

  “Your middle name’s Chester?”

  “’Fraid so. What’s yours?”

  She thought for a second. “When I was Brook, it was Bramble, but I don’t think I have one now.”

  “Bramble’s cool,” Fin said with a pang of jealousy.

  “No she’s not.” Rook looked away.

  She?

  “Well, it’s better than Chester. Why on Earth did you name me that, Mom?”

  “Finally something I don’t get blamed for,” said Brad with a smile. “You were going to tell them, anyway, right?”

  Willow took a deep breath and said, “Beacon told you my name was Liz. I called myself that when I first came to Webster, but it wasn’t my real name.” She paused. “My real name is Ester Elizabeth Finch.”

  Fin didn’t know what to say.

  “You must admit it’s a little more likely than Willow Charm,” she said. “When you were born, I wanted to acknowledge my roots in a subtle, safe way. Ester Finch equals ‘Finch, comma, Ester’ which I turned into Fin Chester.”

  “I was named after you?” Fin suddenly liked Chester a lot more.

  “Does this mean you want us to call you Ester?” Rook asked.

  Willow shook her head. “No, I like Willow.”

  “Me, too,” said Brad. “I love Willow.” He kissed her.

  Fin had to make them stop. “But why did you change your name?”

  “The nature cult,” said Rook. “My mom was Cloud, your mom was Willow. What was your name Brad?”

  “Brad,” said Brad.

  “The Following provided a convenient excuse,” Willow said, “but I was already using an alias. I was on the run, hiding from the military. Still am, really.”

  Willow turned to Brad, who gave her a reassuring smile.

  As Fin listened with increasing consternation, his mother told of growing up in a secret military psychic program and how she’d run away. She explained how she kept her past secret, even from Brad, and how she never felt entitled to ask anything of him since she couldn’t be honest herself. It was novel and uncomfortable for Fin to see Brad as a victim in his parents’ relationship. He always assumed Brad was a philandering asshole.

  “It’s scary to talk about this, terrifying to think what they would do if they found me.” She looked at the baby in Brad’s lap. “Or my children.”

  Brad took her hand.

  “I had to be ready to run again if they came for me. So I never let Brad get close to you. I regret that.”

  Was she really taking the blame for Brad being a shitty father? Because secret agents were after her?

  “Now for the weird part.”

  “It gets weirder?” Fin hugged Rook closer.

  “You’ve heard about Severin, right?”

  Fin nodded.

  “He was the leader of the Following. The nature cult, as Rook calls it. He’s very bad news, but I didn’t realize that at first. He helped me establish the Willow Charm identity, and he paid my tuition at Buckminster.”

  Willow gazed through the wall for a moment, tugging on her hair. “He’s something of a wizard. There’s a magic table that’s a portal into a dimension he calls the Elsewhere. He conjures objects through it and uses them in a sort of fortune-telling way. I know this sounds ridiculous, but it’s real. I used the table myself. It’s not a trick.”

  “As my lovely wife keeps reminding me,” Fin said, “I’ve experienced some rather impossible things myself.”

  Rook squeezed his hand.

  Willow went on to describe her search for her mother using the magic table. She told how Severin kidnapped her.

  Fin’s fists clenched at the image of his mother in danger.

  “I’m okay now, Fin,” she reassured.

  Brad put his arm around her. “It’s hard for us to hear, Wil,” he said. “It confirms our worst fears from back then.”

  “But I’m okay now.” She looked at Fin. “I spent twelve years floating in the Elsewhere. It didn’t feel like twelve years.” She looked down at Zen. “It didn’t even feel like six months. It felt timeless. A truly zen experience.” Her eyes drifted to a horizon only she could see and her words came in a murmur. “It’s like the air was thick, gelatinous. These bubbles of light floated around me and talked to me.” Her fingers fluttered in the air around her head. “They told me so much. It comes to me sometimes like I’m remembering a dream.”

  “Elsewhere.” Fin was curious. “I wonder what it really is.”

  “It seems to be a giant mind, like the world’s mind.” She was more focused now. “Not Mother Nature, or Gaia, or anything like that. More like a collective mind made of all the living things on Earth.”

  Fin sucked in a breath. This sounded like the Collective Id the spiders loved to talk about.

  Willow waited for him to say something, and when he didn’t she went on. “That wasn’t my first visit to the Elsewhere. Back before you were born, Fin, before I even met Brad, I visited during a drug trip.”

  Fin laughed. “You dropped acid?”

  “Some kind of mushroom juice. Injected.”

  “What the fuck, Mom?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t give in to peer pressure, son. Severin pushed it on me. As soon as my head straightened out enough, I got the hell out of there, hitchhiking, and your dad gave me a lift.”

  “Hitchhiking!” Fin had never heard this story. “You met Brad when you were high?”

  That might explain what she saw in him, actually.

  Fin looked back and forth between his parents to see if either of them would let on they were joking. They smiled benignly. He turned to Rook, who looked politely interested, not scandalized in the least to learn her husband was the result of the 70s in microcosm.

  “Anyway,” said Willow, “if you’re done being a prude, that first time it was all green tie-dye fire, and I astral projected, or whatever, right in the middle of it. Terrifying. I had to hide from the All Seeing Eye…”

  “I think you’re getting a little off topic, Wil,” Brad interjected.

  “So I am. Long story short, the green fire and the bubbles of light are the same place. The same colossal mind. It wants a companion. It keeps trying to make one, but loses track of its projects. It’s also obsessed with twins.”

  She stopped talking and looked to Brad. He nodded.

  “I feel like you need to know this because it might have a direct impact on you.”

  “Me?” asked Fin. “How? Why?”

  “Webster is a nexus. The weird stuff the Elsewhere influences is drawn to its own kind. The Elsewhere created Severin’s table as a portal. It created Severin and his twin, my mother, out of whole cloth as infants.”

  “Your mother was created? What does that mean?”

  “It means the bloodline starts with her. The Elsewhere doesn’t seem to remember why it created her and Severin. Once they were separated, it lost interest.”

  “But you weren’t created, were you? You had a father.” Fin didn’t know why he was taking this seriously.

  Willow raised her eyebrows. “Have you ever heard of a TV preacher named Brian Shaw?”

  Fin nodded, wary.

  “He was my father, according to the bubbles.”

  Fin shook his head violently. “Shaw? My grandfather?”

  Rook looked horrified.

  Willow wasn’t done.
“My twin and I were also separated, but we both ended up here in Webster, and we both got involved with the same man.” She paused. “And we both got pregnant.”

  “Wait,” said Fin. “Melissa? Are you saying Melissa is your sister?”

  Willow and Brad both nodded.

  “I suspected, but had no way to prove it,” said Brad. “I never said anything.” He sounded ashamed.

  Fin’s anger and resentment flared, but then he remembered he’d known Melissa for twelve years and never suspected. Now with their images placed side-by-side in his mind, the resemblance was eerie. Then he felt baffled.

  “You told me, eventually,” Willow said to Brad. “We both kept too much hidden, but now we know better.”

  Thinking back over what he’d witnessed of Brad and Melissa’s married life, Fin was unable to recall a single warm moment between them, a sharp contrast to how Brad and Willow behaved, how they were handling this awkwardness.

  “Twins aren’t always the same,” said Rook quietly, voicing Fin’s thoughts. She looked at Brad. “Fin and Kyle are twins, in a way. Half-twins. And they’re very different. I can see how you would be unsure.”

  “Do you know Kyle well?” Brad asked.

  Rook squirmed. “He made a pass at me.”

  At least she didn’t go into the whole ‘I married him, too’ thing. Talk about awkward.

  “It’s the twin obsession,” said Willow. “The Elsewhere has meddled in human affairs, and especially this family, for decades, in an attempt to make more twins. Like I said, it can’t keep track of everything and its projects get away from it. Webster became a magnet for our kind. It drew Severin here, and my mother. It drew me and my twin. The Elsewhere saw to it that Brad got involved with both me and Melissa. He didn’t have a choice.”

  It wasn’t Rook’s choice to be attracted to Kyle. Fin truly believed that. If he could make allowances for his wife, why wasn’t he willing to do the same for his father?

  “Why twins?” said Rook. “What exactly is it trying to do?”

  Willow said, “It feels incomplete. It wants to make a twin for itself so it can be completed.”

  Rook stiffened at the use of the word ‘completed.’

  Oblivious, Willow went on, “The Elsewhere is made of everybody’s thoughts. That leaves nothing leftover to form a companion. If everyone had a twin, it would have one, too, or so is reasons. There would be two identical subsets, Group A made of all the firstborn twins, Group B made of the secondborns.”

  “I’ve heard that twins are becoming more common,” Fin said. “But it’ll take centuries for this plan to work.”

  Willow shook her head. “It’s the idea of twins, not literal biological twins. All it cares about is what we’re all thinking.”

  “Oh, is that all,” Fin said.

  Willow smiled. “When everyone is thinking their own thing, the Elsewhere gets scatterbrained because it’s pulled in so many directions. When large numbers of people obsess about the same thing, it can focus. That’s where fads and religions come from: the Elsewhere trying to encourage lock-step thought. If it can get Group A and Group B to each have their own fixation, a second Elsewhere should be created. Then it wouldn’t be alone.”

  This shit had the whiff of Shaw’s New Revelations about it. But Shaw got it backwards, trying to make the Divided Man into one whole. The Elsewhere, this Id the spiders talked about, wanted two.

  “Is it winning?” Rook asked.

  Willow cocked her head.

  “Well,” Rook said, “Severin and Gale are reunited, right? And you and your sister are both here in Webster…”

  “I don’t think it works like that,” Willow said. “Our generation is played out. It’s you kids that interest it now. Besides, Gale is dead. The Elsewhere reclaimed her.”

  “Severin’s alone,” Fin said. “Aren’t you worried he’ll try to kidnap you again?”

  Willow looked at Brad, who shifted uncomfortably.

  “Melissa is with him now,” Brad mumbled.

  “What?”

  Brad took a deep breath. “I used her as a distraction the night I rescued Willow. I guess she likes Severin, though. She moved in. From what I understand she talks to Kyle’s doctor sometimes, checks her voicemail.” He shrugged.

  “My guess is she’s drawn to the power,” said Willow. “Severin’s table is a fascinating thing. I was able to use it. She probably can, too.”

  “Did you ever meet your father?” Rook asked Willow.

  “No,” Willow said, looking at Zen in Brad’s lap. “He died a few months ago. I don’t think I would have wanted to meet him, though.” Fixing Rook with her gaze, she added, “Some people are best avoided.”

  Rook nodded. “I met him once. He kidnapped me.”

  Brad and Willow looked at Rook sharply.

  “Me too,” Fin said. “The reverend wanted to, ah, interview me. I don’t think he knew we were related.”

  Brad and Willow both looked anxious and baffled.

  “There was some body jewelry with miniature electronics in it,” Rook explained. “I didn’t know about the electronics when I pierced people with it. Shaw wanted to use the stuff to control people’s minds. I guess he was doing the Elsewhere’s bidding.”

  “I’m glad he’s dead,” Willow said.

  Everyone sat quietly for several minutes, pondering how crazy the world had become.

  “I hope I was right to share this with you,” said Willow. “I couldn’t stand the thought of more secrets. They only lead to trouble.”

  *** *** ***

  After waving goodnight and shutting the front door, Willow accepted the baby from Brad, who started gathering up wrapping paper. He located a bow and stuck it to Zen’s fuzzy head. Willow smiled, but something weighed down her eyes, holding her gaze to the floor.

  “Brad, there’s something else I need to tell you about.”

  He motioned to the sofa and they both sat.

  “I know about that electronic jewelry Rook was talking about.” Willow’s mouth felt dry. “I know a whole lot about it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I designed it. My last freelance job.” Willow traced the green satin bow Zen wore, her brow knitted. “I didn’t know what it was at the time. I never knew anything more than the bare essentials. I never stopped to wonder where any of my work would end up. God knows how Shaw got hold of it, no pun intended.”

  Brad chuckled, but Willow winced. She cuddled Zen to her cheek.

  “You need to tell Fin about this,” Brad suggested.

  Willow shook her head.

  Brad gave her a gentle kiss on the temple. Her head drooped, pressing out a sigh.

  “Why did you tell me?” Brad asked.

  Willow studied him sidelong. “Secrets only lead to trouble.”

  “But did telling me make you feel any better?”

  Willow pictured Fin’s reactions to different ways she might explain this, toying with the bow until it tumbled to the floor. She shook her head. “It’s all in the past. Shaw is dead, and everyone is safe. If I tell Fin, it will put a new barrier between us.”

  Brad gave her a squeeze. “Whatever you think is right.” He held her shoulders, held her gaze. “Just remember what you said about secrets.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE AFFECTED AREA

  The id is an essential element of the mind, a fountain of drives to guarantee survival. Other beings do not exist for the id: there are only food-bringers, back-scratchers, playthings. It is a heap of urges and reactions. Consciousness, the ego, takes root and blossoms in the id’s dark, fertile soil. Like a potted plant on a windowsill, that consciousness will bend toward the light of the superego.

  Inside every individual human skull this tiny drama plays out as if for the first time.

  On a grander scale, meanwhile, the Collective Ego’s frail stem has hardly breached the surface of the vast Id, and no light shines to guide and nourish it. If someone could bring the dawn to that twilight g
arden, he would be the Collective Superego, bending the Ego and thereby all of humanity to his will.

  Severin Tenpenny’s journal

  At seven in the morning on New Year’s Day, Fin had already been at work for an hour. He was still drunk, having come straight from the party. Kevin, the new guy in Kyle’s old room, sprang for a keg. Bishop furnished a bottle of tequila. Booth provided the weed, Max the vodka, Quent the pretzels and nachos, and Fin brought all the leftover sauerkraut and bratwurst from the Vagabond’s New Year’s menu. At Bishop’s insistence, the crowd was kept small. They had a great time, the best Fin could remember. Rook even persuaded him to dance with her for a few songs.

  Now that he was married, people expected less from him in the way of crazy antics. It felt good to let loose and have fun without the pressure of putting on a performance.

  The party petered out by five a.m., and Fin took Rook to bed so they could start the new year with a bang. She was sleeping when he left, which was a relief. She slept so little. When he got off work, he’d take her some food and see if she’d be interested in coming back to bed so he could get some sleep himself.

  Right now he was up to his elbows in plate-scrapings. Belgian waffles, blintzes, Eggs Benedict, half-masticated bagels with lox. All of it went down the disposal as Fin loaded the next tray for the washer. He told himself to take his time, that his judgment was impaired and his reflexes dulled by all he’d imbibed the night before.

  Out in the dining room, the music was some weird zydeco/world beat hybrid. Here in the kitchen it was Travesties of the 70s. The two were battling it out for the title of Most Annoying Music Ever until Fin’s sozzled synapses misfired and they became one song, infinitely better than the original components.

  Nodding to the beat of this imaginary new song, Fin didn’t even dread the prospect of scrubbing the soufflé pans. It was that good.

  Staying tuned in to the mash-up meant Fin had to shift his brain into approximately the same gear that once enabled him to converse with the Floating Wisdom.

  Babble washed in from the dining room whenever the door swung open. He caught snippets of conversations, mingled with the global-village music and random clinks. These miscellaneous words and sound effects found a place in the surreal symphony inside Fin’s head, interleaving with each other and the corny lyrics.